Article

DSAG Member Survey Renews Enthusiasm

by Dr. Mario Günter | SAPinsider

April 1, 2012

To find out where they were successfully helping members and where they needed to add more support, the German-Speaking SAP User Group (DSAG) recently conducted a phone-based survey with approximately 1,200 randomly selected members and non-members located in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In this article, you’ll discover the results of the survey and DSAG’s plans to bolster its member support systems.

Ensuring that our members are satisfied with our services and processes has always been a high priority for the German-Speaking SAP User Group (DSAG). To help us determine how to create even more value for our members, we conducted a phone-based survey of approximately 1,200 randomly selected members and non-members located in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Our goal was to find out where we were succeeding at helping our members and where we needed to add more support. Let’s dig into some of our key findings.

Top Priorities: Continue as a Consumer Advocate and Information Distributor

Of those surveyed, 82% identified DSAG’s top purpose as a user advocate with SAP. To that end, our members have requested that we improve our influencing and networking activities and provide them with even more SAP information on a wide range of topics. Therefore, as a first step, we expanded our front-office DSAG team with new staff members who will provide further member support in Austria and Switzerland and will work to improve information dissemination on a number of topics, such as SAP Business Suite and industry-specific solutions.

We also garnered some very useful feedback in response to our questions about DSAG’s services — which include the meetings of our special interest groups, the organization of our events, and the publication of our newsletter, member magazine, and best-practice guidelines. We asked which of our existing services are the most in demand and if members would like to see any new services.

We were surprised to find that nearly 66% of those surveyed do not see the need for any further services; instead, they want to see the existing DSAG services enhanced, improved, and intensified. For instance, one service that members asked us to enhance is our information distribution service so they can receive information and news from SAP faster via webinars and other technical channels. To this end, from 2012 on, we will strengthen our comprehensive information campaign to provide more goal-oriented and far-reaching information that will help our members make better, more well-founded decisions regarding their SAP solutions.

We plan to do this by restructuring and modernizing the DSAGNet platform, which will provide members with a better method of exchanging information about DSAG in general, the special interest groups, news, and events. In addition, we plan to integrate an online edition of our membership magazine into the DSAGNet.

Among the roughly 33% of members looking for new services, the top requests were for SAP training and access to a pool of IT experts. DSAG is evaluating its ability to fulfill these requests.

Future Initiatives

Overall, DSAG members gave us some very positive ratings: 80% of those questioned said they were extremely satisfied with DSAG. In Austria, the figure even reached 88%.

We don’t see these ratings as a sign that it’s time sit back and relax, however. Rather, they spark tremendous motivation to continue to find new ways to support our members. DSAG’s goal is to provide members with the information and resources they need. While the survey results show we are meeting our members’ needs in most areas, we will continue to solicit their feedback to identify areas we can improve our offerings. For more information, visit www.dsag.de.